[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19200-19203]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  RICHARD GARDNER URGES HIGHER BUDGET PRIORITY FOR U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in an article published in the July/
August issue of Foreign Affairs, Richard Gardner argues persuasively 
that at this time of record prosperity, America must commit itself to 
an increased budget for foreign policy in order to protect our vital 
interests and carry out our commitments around the world. He argues 
that America's security interests must be protected not only by 
maintaining a superior military force, but also by focusing on other 
international issues that are essential to our national security, such 
as global warming, AIDS, drug-trafficking, and terrorism. He asserts 
that

[[Page 19201]]

to achieve these goals, foreign aid must be given higher spending 
priority, and the current trend of decreased funding for our 
international commitments must be reversed.
  Mr. Gardner is well known to many of us in Congress. For many years, 
and under many Administrations, he has served our nation well as a 
distinguished diplomat. He skillfully represented U.S. interests 
abroad, and has made valuable contributions to advancing America's 
foreign policy objectives. He continues this important work today, 
serving as a Professor of Law and International Organization at 
Columbia University and a member of the President's Advisory Committee 
on Trade Policy and Negotiations.
  I believe that Ambassador Gardner's article will be of interest to 
all of us in Congress, and I ask unanimous consent that it may be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2000]

    The One Percent Solution--Shirking the Cost of World Leadership

                        (By Richard N. Gardner)

       A dangerous game is being played in Washington with 
     America's national security. Call it the ``one percent 
     solution''--the fallacy that a successful U.S. foreign policy 
     can be carried out with barely one percent of the federal 
     budget. Unless the next president moves urgently to end this 
     charade, he will find himself in a financial straitjacket 
     that frustrates his ability to promote American interests and 
     values in an increasingly uncertain world.
       Ultimately, the only way to end the dangerous one percent 
     solution game is to develop a new national consensus that 
     sees the international affairs budget as part of the national 
     security budget--because the failure to build solid 
     international partnerships to treat the causes of conflict 
     today will mean costly military responses tomorrow. Those who 
     play the one percent solution game do not understand a post-
     Cold War world in which a host of international problems now 
     affects Americans' domestic welfare, from financial crises 
     and the closing of markets to global warming, AIDS, 
     terrorism, drug trafficking, and the spread of weapons of 
     mass destruction. Solving these problems will require 
     leadership, and that will cost.


                        money changes everything

       If this all sounds exaggerated, consider the way the one 
     percent solution game is being played this year, when America 
     has a GDP of nearly $10 trillion and a federal budget of over 
     $1.8 trillion. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked 
     the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for $25 billion in 
     the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2001, which begins October 1, 
     for the so-called 150 Account, which covers the nonmilitary 
     costs of protecting U.S. national security. OMB cut that 
     figure to $22.8 billion to fit President Clinton's commitment 
     to continued fiscal responsibility and limited budgetary 
     growth.
       The congressional budget committees cut it further to $20 
     billion, or $2.3 billion less than the $22.3 billion approved 
     for FY 2000. At the same time, the budget committees raised 
     defense spending authority for FY 2001 to $310.8 billion--
     $4.5 billion more than the administration requested.
       Clinton and Albright strongly protested the congressional 
     cuts. They will undoubtedly protest even more when the 
     appropriations committees of the Senate and the House divide 
     up the meager 150 Account pie into inadequate slices for 
     essential foreign affairs functions. At the end of this 
     congressional session, $1 billion or so of the foreign 
     affairs cuts may be restored if Clinton threatens to veto the 
     appropriation bills--not easy to do in an election year. Of 
     course, the next president could make another familiar move 
     in the one percent solution game--ask for a small 
     supplemental appropriation to restore the previous cuts. But 
     if the past is any guide, Congress will do its best to force 
     the next administration to accommodate most of its 
     supplemental spending within the existing budget. (This year, 
     for instance, Congress resisted additional spending to pay 
     for the U.S. share of multilateral projects such as more U.N. 
     peacekeeping and debt reduction for the poorest countries.)
       Even more discouraging for the next president are the 
     projections for the 150 Account that the Clinton 
     administration and the budget committees have presented as 
     spending guidelines until 2005. The president's projected 
     foreign affairs spending request of $24.5 billion for 2005 
     hardly keeps up with inflation, and the budget committees' 
     target of $20 billion means a decrease of nearly 20 percent 
     from FY 2000, adjusted for inflation. By contrast, the 
     administration's projected defense spending authority goes up 
     to $331 billion in FY 2005; the budget committees' defense 
     projection is comparable. Thus the ratio of military spending 
     to foreign affairs spending would continue to increase in the 
     next few years, rising to more than 16 to 1.
       The percentage of the U.S. budget devoted to international 
     affairs has been declining for four decades. In the 1960s, 
     the 150 Account made up 4 percent of the federal budget; in 
     the 1970s, it averaged about 2 percent; during the first half 
     of the 1990s, it went down to 1 percent, with only a slight 
     recovery in FYs 1999 and 2000. The international affairs 
     budget is now about 20 percent less in today's dollars than 
     it was on average during the late 1970s and the 1980s.
       A nation's budget, like that of a corporation or an 
     individual, reflects its priorities. Both main political 
     parties share a broad consensus that assuring U.S. national 
     security in the post-Cold War era requires a strong military 
     and the willingness to use it to defend important U.S. 
     interests and values. The Clinton administration and Congress 
     have therefore supported recent increases in the defense 
     budget to pay for more generous salaries and a better quality 
     of life in order to attract and retain quality personnel; 
     fund necessary research, training, and weapons maintenance; 
     and procure new and improved weapons systems. Politicians and 
     military experts may differ on the utility and cost-
     effectiveness of particular weapons, but after the catch-up 
     defense increases of the last several years, Washington 
     appears to be on an agreed course to keep the defense budget 
     growing modestly to keep up with the rate of inflation.
       Why then, at a time of unprecedented prosperity and budget 
     surpluses, can Washington not generate a similar consensus on 
     the need to adequately fund the nonmilitary component of 
     national security? Apparently spending on foreign affairs is 
     not regarded as spending for national security. Compounding 
     the problem is Washington's commendable new commitment to 
     fiscal responsibility after years of huge budget deficits--a 
     commitment reflected in the tight cap that Congress placed on 
     discretionary spending in 1997. Even though that cap is 
     already being violated and will undoubtedly be revised upward 
     this year, the new bipartisan agreement to lock up the Social 
     Security surplus to meet the retirement costs of the baby 
     boomers will continue to make for difficult budget choices 
     and leave limited room for increased spending elsewhere, 
     foreign affairs included.
       The non-Social Security surplus--estimated at something 
     more than $700 billion during the decade 2000-2010--will 
     barely cover some modest tax cuts while keeping Medicare 
     solvent and paying for some new spending on health care and 
     education. Fortunately, higher-than-expected GDP growth may 
     add $20-30 billion per year to the non-Social Security 
     surplus, affording some additional budgetary wiggle room. 
     Even so, that windfall could be entirely eaten up by larger 
     tax cuts, more domestic spending, or unanticipated defense 
     budget increases--unless foreign affairs spending becomes a 
     higher priority now.
       More money is not a substitute for an effective foreign 
     policy, but an effective foreign policy will simply be 
     impossible without more money. Foreign policy experts 
     therefore disdain ``boring budget arithmetic'' at their 
     peril.
       The State Department recently set forth seven fundamental 
     national interests in its foreign affairs strategic plan: 
     national security; economic prosperity and freer trade; 
     protection of U.S. citizens abroad and safeguarding of U.S. 
     borders; the fight against international terrorism, crime, 
     and drug trafficking; the establishment and consolidation of 
     democracies and the upholding of human rights; the provision 
     of humanitarian assistance to victims of crisis and disaster; 
     and finally, the improvement of the global environment, 
     stabilization of world population growth, and protection of 
     human health. This is a sensible list, but in the political 
     climate of today's Washington, few in the executive branch or 
     Congress dare ask how much money will really be required to 
     support it. Rather, the question usually asked is how much 
     the political traffic will bear.
       Going on this way will force unacceptable foreign policy 
     choices--either adequate funding for secure embassies and 
     modern communications systems for diplomats or adequate 
     funding for U.N. peacekeeping in Kosovo, East Timor, and 
     Africa; either adequate funding for the Middle East peace 
     process or adequate funding to safeguard nuclear weapons and 
     materials in Russia; either adequate funding for family 
     planning to control world population growth or adequate 
     funding to save refugees and displaced persons. The world's 
     greatest power need not and should not accept a situation in 
     which it has to make these kinds of choices.


                           The state of state

       Ideally, a bipartisan, expert study would tell us what a 
     properly funded foreign affairs budget would look like. In 
     the absence of such a study, consider the following a rough 
     estimate of the increases now required in the two main parts 
     of the 150 Account. The first part is the State Department 
     budget, which includes not only the cost of U.S. diplomacy 
     but also U.S. assessed contributions to international 
     organizations and peacekeeping. The second part is the 
     foreign operations budget, which includes bilateral 
     development aid, the bilateral economic support fund for 
     special foreign policy priorities, bilateral military aid, 
     and contributions to

[[Page 19202]]

     voluntary U.N. programs and multilateral development banks.
       Take State's budget first. The United States maintains 250 
     embassies and other posts in 160 countries. Far from being 
     rendered less important by the end of the Cold War or today's 
     instant communications, these diplomatic posts and the State 
     Department that directs them are more essential then ever in 
     promoting the seven fundamental U.S. foreign policy interests 
     identified above.
       Ambassadors and their staffs have to play multiple roles 
     today--as the ``eyes and ears'' of the president and 
     secretary of state, advocates for U.S. policies in the upper 
     reaches of the host government, resourceful negotiators, and 
     intellectual, educational, and cultural emissaries in public 
     diplomacy with key interest groups, opinion leaders, and the 
     public at large. As Albright put it in recent congressional 
     testimony, the Foreign Service, the Civil Service, and the 
     Foreign nationals serving in U.S. overseas posts contribute 
     daily to the welfare of the American people ``through the 
     dangers they help contain; the crimes they help prevent; the 
     deals they help close; the rights they help protect, and the 
     travelers they just plain help.''
       Following the tragic August 1998 bombings of American 
     embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the secretary of 
     state, with the support of the president and Congress, 
     established the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel (OPAP), 
     composed of current and former diplomats and private-sector 
     representatives, to recommend improvements in America's 
     overseas diplomatic establishment. ``The United States 
     overseas presence, which has provided the essential 
     underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy for many decades, is 
     near a state of crisis,'' the panel warned. ``Insecure and 
     often decrepit facilities, obsolete information technology, 
     outmoded administrative and human resources practices, poor 
     allocation of resources, and competition from the private 
     sector for talented staff threaten to cripple America's 
     overseas capability, with far-reaching consequences for 
     national security and prosperity.''
       The OPAP report focused more on reforms than on money, but 
     many of its recommendations have price tags. The report 
     called for $1.3 billion per year for embassy construction and 
     security upgrades--probably $100 million too little, since an 
     earlier and more authoritative study by the Accountability 
     Review Boards under former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair 
     William Crowe proposed $1.4 billion annually for that 
     purpose. OPAP also called for another $330 million over 
     several years to provide unclassified and secure Internet and 
     e-mail information networks linking all U.S. agencies and 
     overseas posts.
       Moreover, OPAP proposed establishing an interagency panel 
     chaired by the secretary of state to evaluate the size, 
     location, and composition of America's overseas presence. 
     Visitors who see many people in U.S. embassies often do not 
     realize that the State Department accounts for only 42 
     percent of America's total overseas personnel; the Defense 
     Department accounts for 37 percent, and more than two dozen 
     other agencies such as the Agency for International 
     Development and the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and 
     Justice make up the rest. If one includes the foreign 
     nationals hired as support staff, State Department personnel 
     in some large U.S. embassies are less than 15 percent of the 
     employees, and many of them are administrators.
       The State Department's FY 2001 budget of $6.8 billion 
     provide $3.2 billion for administering foreign affairs. Of 
     that, even after the East Africa bombings, only $1.1 billion 
     will go toward embassy construction and security upgrades, 
     even though $1.4 billion is needed. Moreover, only $17 
     million is provided for new communications infrastructure, 
     although $330 million is needed. Almost nothing is included 
     to fill a 700-position shortfall of qualified personnel. The 
     State Department therefore requires another $500 million just 
     to meet its minimal needs.
       The FY 2001 State Department budget contains a small but 
     inadequate increase--from $204 million in FY 2000 to $225 
     million--for the educational and cultural exchanges formerly 
     administered by the U.S. Information Agency. Most of this 
     money will go to the Fulbright academic program and the 
     International Visitors Program, which brings future foreign 
     leaders in politics, the media, trade unions, and other 
     nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) to meet with their 
     American counterparts. These valuable and cost-effective 
     exchanges have been slashed from their 1960s and 1970s 
     heights. A near-doubling of these programs' size--with 
     disproportionate increases for exchanges with especially 
     important countries such as Russia and China--would clearly 
     serve U.S. national security interests. A sensible annual 
     budget increase for educational and cultural exchanges would 
     be $200 million.
       The budget includes $946 million for assessed contributions 
     to international organizations, of which $300 million is for 
     the U.N. itself and $380 million more is for U.N.-affiliated 
     agencies such as the International Labor Organization, the 
     World Health Organization, the World Health Organization, the 
     International Atomic Energy Agency, and the war crimes 
     tribunals for Rwanda and the Balkans. Other bodies such as 
     NATO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
     Development (OECD), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) 
     account for the rest.
       Richard Holbrooke, the able American ambassador to the 
     U.N., is currently deep in difficult negotiations to reduce 
     the assessed U.S. share of the regular U.N. budget and the 
     budgets of major specialized U.N. agencies from 25 percent to 
     22 percent--a precondition required by the Helms-Biden 
     legislation for paying America's U.N. arrears. If Holbrooke 
     succeeds, U.S. contributions to international organizations 
     will drop slightly.
       But this reduction will be more than offset by the need to 
     pay for modest U.N. budget increases. The zero nominal growth 
     requirement that Congress slapped on U.N. budgets is now 
     becoming counterproductive. To take just one example, the 
     U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations is now short at 
     least 100 staffers, which leaves it ill-prepared to handle 
     the increased number and scale of peacekeeping operations. If 
     Washington could agree to let U.N. budgets rise by inflation 
     plus a percent or two in the years ahead and to channel the 
     increase to programs of particular U.S. interest, America 
     would have more influence and the U.N. would be more 
     effective. Some non-U.N. organizations, such as NATO, the 
     OECD, and the WTO, also require budget increases beyond the 
     rate of inflation to do their jobs properly. Moreover, 
     America should rejoin the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and 
     Cultural Organization (UNESCO), given the growing foreign 
     policy importance of its concerns and the role that new 
     communications technology can play in helping developing 
     countries. The increased annual cost of UNESCO membership 
     ($70 million) and of permitting small annual increases in the 
     U.N.'s and other international organizations' budgets ($30 
     million) comes to another $100 million.
       Selling this will take leadership. In particular, a 
     showdown is brewing with Congress over the costs of U.N. 
     peacekeeping. After reaching a high of 80,000 in 1993 and 
     then dropping to 13,000 in 1998, the number of U.N. 
     peacekeepers is rising again to 30,000 or more as a result of 
     new missions in Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the 
     proposed mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 
     (DRC). So the State Department had to ask Congress for $739 
     million for U.N. peacekeeping in the FY 2001 budget, compared 
     to the $500 million it received in FY 2000. (The White House 
     also requested a FY 2000 budget supplement of $143 million, 
     which has not yet been approved.) But even these sums fall 
     well short of what Washington will have to pay for 
     peacekeeping this year and next. In Kosovo, the mission is 
     seriously underfunded; the U.N. peacekeeping force in 
     southern Lebanon will have to be beefed up after an Israeli 
     withdrawal; and new or expanded missions could be required 
     for conflicts in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia-Eritrea, and the DRC. 
     So total U.N. peacekeeping costs could rise to $3.5-4 billion 
     per year. With the United States paying for 25 percent of 
     peacekeeping (although it is still assessed at the rate of 31 
     percent, which is unduly high), these new challenges could 
     cost taxpayers at least $200 million per year more than the 
     amount currently budgeted. Washington should, of course, 
     watch the number, cost, and effectiveness of U.N. 
     peacekeeping operations, but the existing and proposed 
     operations serve U.S. interest and must be adequately funded.
       Add up all these sums and one finds that the State 
     Departments budget needs an increase of $1 billion, for a 
     total of $7.9 billion per year.


                            a decent respect

       The Clinton administration has asked for $15.1 billion for 
     the foreign operations budget for FY 2001--the second part of 
     the 150 Account. Excluding $3.7 billion for military aid and 
     $1 billion for the Export-Import Bank, that leaves about 
     $10.l4 billion in international development and humanitarian 
     assistance. This includes various categories of bilateral 
     aid: $2.1 billion for sustainable development; $658 million 
     for migration and refugee assistance; $830 million to promote 
     free-market democracies and secure nuclear materials in the 
     countries of the former Soviet Union; and $610 million of 
     support for eastern Europe and the Balkans. It also covers 
     about $1.4 billion for multilateral development banks, 
     including $800 million for the International Development 
     Association, the World Bank affiliate for lending to the 
     poorest countries. Another $350 million goes to international 
     organizations and programs such as the U.N. Development 
     Program ($90 million), the U.N. Children's Fund ($110 
     million), the U.N. Population Fund ($25 million), and the 
     U.N. Environment Program ($10 million).
       The $10.4 billion for development and humanitarian aid is 
     just 0.11 percent of U.S. GDP and 0.60 percent of federal 
     budget outlays. This figure is now near record lows. In 1962, 
     foreign aid amounted to $18.5 billion in current dollars, or 
     0.58 percent of GDP and 3.06 percent of federal spending. In 
     the 1980s, it averaged just over $13 billion a year in 
     current dollars, or 0.20 percent of GDP and 0.92 percent of 
     federal spending. Washington's current 0.11 percent aid-to-
     GDP share compares unflatteringly with the average of 0.30 
     percent in the other OECD donor countries. On a per capita 
     basis, each American contributes about $29 per year to 
     development and humanitarian aid, compared to a

[[Page 19203]]

     media of $70 in the other OECD countries. According to the 
     Clinton administration's own budget forecasts, the FY 2001 
     aid figure of $10.4 billion will drop even further in FY 
     2005, to $9.7 billion. Congress' low target for total 
     international spending that year will almost certainly cut 
     the FY 2005 aid figure even more.
       Considering current economic and social trends in the 
     world's poor countries, these law and declining aid levels 
     are unjustifiable. World Bank President James Wolfensohn is 
     right: the global struggle to reduce poverty and save the 
     environment is being lost. Although hundreds of millions of 
     people in the developing world escaped from poverty in recent 
     years, half of the six billion people on Earth still live on 
     less than $2 a day. Two billion are not connected to any 
     energy system. One and a half billion lack clean water. More 
     than a billion lack basic education, health care, or modern 
     birth control methods.
       The world's population, which grows by about 75 million a 
     year, will probably reach about 9 billion by 2050; most will 
     live in the world's poorest countries. If present trends 
     continue, we can expect more abject poverty, environmental 
     damage, epidemics, political instability, drug trafficking, 
     ethnic violence, religious fundamentalism, and terrorism. 
     This is not the kind of world Americans want their children 
     to inherit. The Declaration of Independence speaks of ``a 
     decent respect for the opinion of mankind.'' Today's 
     political leaders need a decent respect for future 
     generations.
       To be sure, the principal responsibility for progress in 
     the developing countries rests with those countries 
     themselves. But their commitments to pursue sound economic 
     policies and humane social policies will fall short without 
     more and better-designed development aid--as well as more 
     generous trade concessions--from the United States and its 
     wealthy partners. At the main industrialized nations' summit 
     last year in Birmingham, U.K. the G-8 (the G-7 group of 
     highly industrialized countries plus Russia) endorsed such 
     U.N.-backed goals as halving the number of people suffering 
     from illiteracy, malnutrition, and extreme poverty by 2015.
       Beyond these broad goals, America's next president should 
     earmark proposed increases in U.S. development aid for 
     specific programs that promote fundamental American interests 
     and values and that powerful domestic constituencies could be 
     mobilized to support. These would include programs that 
     promote clean energy technologies to help fight global 
     warming; combat the spread of diseases such as AIDS, which is 
     ravaging Africa; assure primary education for all children, 
     without the present widespread discrimination against girls; 
     bridge the ``digital divide'' and stimulate development by 
     bringing information technology and the Internet to schools, 
     libraries, and hospitals; provide universal maternal and 
     child care, as well as family planning for all those who wish 
     to use it, thus reducing unwanted pregnancies and unsafe 
     abortions; support democracy and the rule of law; establish 
     better corporate governance, banking regulations, and 
     accounting standards; and protect basic worker rights.
       What would the G-8 and U.N. targets and these specific 
     programs mean for the U.S. foreign operations budget? 
     Answering this question is much harder than estimating an 
     adequate State Department budget. Doing so requires more 
     information on total requirements, appropriate burden-sharing 
     between developed and developing countries, the share that 
     can be assumed by business and NGOs, the absorptive capacity 
     of countries, and aid agencies' ability to handle more 
     assistance effectively.
       Still, there are fairly reliable estimates of total aid 
     needs in many areas. For example, the 1994 Cairo Conference 
     on Population and Development endorsed an expert estimate 
     that $17 billion per year is now required to provide 
     universal access to voluntary family planning in the 
     developing world, with $5.7 billion of it to be supplied by 
     developed countries. Were the United States to contribute 
     based on its share of donor-country GDP, U.S. aid in this 
     sector would rise to about $1.9 billion annually. By 
     contrast, U.S. foreign family-planning funding in FY 2000 was 
     only $372 million; the Clinton administration has requested 
     $541 million for FY 2001.
       We already know enough about aid requirements in other 
     sectors to suggest that doing Washington's fair share in 
     sustainable-development programs would require about $10 
     billion more per year by FY 2005, which would bring its total 
     aid spending up to some $20 billion annually. This would 
     raise U.S. aid levels from their present 0.11 percent of GDP 
     to about 0.20 percent, the level of U.S. aid 20 years ago. 
     That total could be reached by annual increases of $2 billion 
     per year, starting with a $1.6 billion foreign-aid supplement 
     for FY 2001 and conditioning each annual increase on 
     appropriate management reforms and appropriate increases in 
     aid from other donors.
       An FY 2005 target of $20 billion for development and 
     humanitarian aid would mean a foreign operations budget that 
     year of about $25 billion; total foreign affairs spending 
     that year would be about $33 billion. This sounds like a lot 
     of money, but it would be less than the United States spent 
     on foreign affairs in real terms in 1985. As a percentage of 
     the FY 2005 federal budget, it would still be less than 
     average annual U.S. foreign affairs spending in the late 
     1970s and 1980s.


                             sticker shock

       For a newly elected George W. Bush or Al Gore, asking for 
     $2.6 billion in additional supplemental funds for FY 2001 on 
     top of reversing this year's budget cuts--thus adding $1 
     billion for the State Department and $1.6 billion more for 
     foreign operations--would produce serious ``sticker shock'' 
     in the congressional budget and appropriations committees. So 
     would seeking $27 billion for the 150 Account for FY 2002 and 
     additional annual increases of $2 billion per year in order 
     to reach a total of $33 billion in FY 2005. How could 
     Congress be persuaded?
       The new president--Democrat or Republican--would have to 
     pave the way in meetings with congressional leaders between 
     election day and his inauguration, justifying the additional 
     expenditures in national security terms. He would need to 
     make the case with opinion leaders and the public, explaining 
     in a series of speeches and press conferences that America is 
     entering not just a new century but also a new era of global 
     interaction. He would need to energize the business 
     community, unions, and the religious and civic groups who are 
     the main constituencies for a more adequate foreign affairs 
     budget. Last but not least, he would need to emphasize 
     reforms in the State Department, in foreign-aid programs, and 
     in international agencies to provide confidence that the 
     additional money would be spent wisely.
       Starting off a presidency this way would be a gamble, of 
     course. But most presidents get the benefit of the doubt 
     immediately after their first election. Anyway, without this 
     kind of risk-taking, the new commander in chief would be 
     condemning his administration to playing the old one percent 
     solution game, almost certainly crippling U.S. foreign policy 
     for the remainder of his term. The one percent solution is no 
     solution at all.

                          ____________________